The Onerous Factor About Onerous Issues: Constructing a Enterprise When There Are No Simple Solutions

The Easy Thing About “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” is Reading It
The easy thing about “The Hard Thing About Hard Things,” Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz’s book about “Building a business when there are no easy answers,” is reading it. That’s because it’s funny, to-the-point, and way more well-informed by real-world experience than most books that give advice ever are. Like the secret to being a successful CEO: “Sadly, there is no secret, but if there is one skill that stands out, it’s the ability to focus and make the best move when there are no good moves.” And, “Managers must lay off their own people. They cannot pass the task to HR or to a more sadistic peer.” And, “The job of a big company executive is very different from the job of a small company executive…big company executives tend to be interrupt-driven. In contrast, when you are a startup, nothing happens unless you make it happen.” But it’s not just catchy phrases and aphorisms that make the book something pretty much anybody who wants to build a company should read, it’s the experience that created them: Horowitz provides in brutal (and, for aspiring entrepreneurs, invaluable) detail the excruciating real-life experiences behind the advice, from his years as a Silicon Valley engineer and then as the CEO of a start-up with more near-death experiences than Keith Richards before its successful sale to HP. Like how to fire people. What to say at the “all-hands” when you just had your first layoffs. What to tell an employee who asks if the company is being sold when it is being sold, but not yet. Why every company needs a “story,” and what makes a great company story (hint: see the letter Jeff Bezos wrote to Amazon shareholders in 1997.) When not to listen to your board. Even, literally, what questions a CEO should ask a prospect being considered for the key, all-important job in any start-up: head of sales. I’m not a fan of “how-to” books, particularly those concerned with managing people, because they tend to be heavy on theory and light on reality, but the chapter emphatically titled “WHY YOU SHOULD TRAIN YOUR PEOPLE” proved the value of the author’s experience because it explains the trap in which an engineer I know happens to find himself. He is a software engineer for a start-up that was acquired by a large, fast-growing Silicon Valley company whose name rhymes with “Shalesforce.com.” He is smart, highly motivated, eager to learn, and yet he is miserable at his job for precisely the reason Horowitz spells out as follows in “WHY YOU SHOULD TRAIN YOUR PEOPLE”: “Often founders start companies with visions of elegant, beautiful product architectures that will solve so many of the nasty issues that they were forced to deal with in their previous jobs. Then, as their company becomes successful, they find that their beautiful product architecture has turned into a Frankenstein. How does this happen? As success drives the need to hire new engineers at a rapid rate, companies neglect to train the new engineers properly. As the engineers are assigned tasks, they figure out how to complete them as best they can. Often this means replicating existing facilities in the architecture, which leads to inconsistencies in the user experience, performance problems, and a general mess. And you thought training was expensive.” That line is the exact truth. Just ask the engineer at Shalesforce.com. His managers—if they exist—ought to read this book. In fact, anybody who wants to start a company, or work for a company, or build a company, or invest in a company, ought to read this book, because that’s not the only hard-learned truth in here. Some others include: “In high-tech companies, fraud generally starts in sales due to managers attempting to perfect the ultimate local optimization [i.e. optimize their own incentive pay].” “The Law of Crappy People states: For any title level in a large organization, the talent on that level will eventually converge to the crappiest person with the title.” “The world is full of bankrupt companies with world-class cultures. Culture does not make a company…. Perks are good, but they are not culture.” “Nobody comes out of the womb knowing how to manage a thousand people. Everybody learns at some point.” “The first rule of the CEO psychological meltdown is don’t talk about the psychological meltdown.” And maybe the best of all, because it encapsulates so much of what the book is about: “Tip to aspiring entrepreneurs: If you don’t like choosing between horrible and cataclysmic, don’t become CEO.” This book, on the other hand, is a choice between good and great, so read it.Jeff MatthewsAuthor “Secrets in Plain Sight: Business and Investing Secrets of Warren Buffett”(eBooks on Investing, 2013) $4.99 Kindle Version at Amazon.com

Gran libro con muchos aprendizaje

“The Hard Thing About Hard Things” von Ben Horowitz ist eines der besten Bücher, das ich je über das Führen und Skalieren eines Unternehmens gelesen habe. Es ist eine unverzichtbare Lektüre für jeden, der in der Welt des Unternehmertums unterwegs ist oder darüber nachdenkt, ein Unternehmen zu gründen.Vorteile:Brutale Ehrlichkeit: Ben Horowitz beschreibt in schonungsloser Offenheit die schwierigen, oft unangenehmen Seiten des Unternehmertums, die selten in anderen Büchern thematisiert werden. Er beleuchtet, wie man mit Herausforderungen umgeht, wenn es keine einfachen Antworten gibt – von der Kündigung von Mitarbeitern bis hin zum Umgang mit existenziellen Krisen.Praktische Ratschläge: Das Buch ist vollgepackt mit praktischen Ratschlägen, die auf Horowitz’ eigenen Erfahrungen als Gründer und CEO von Unternehmen wie Loudcloud und Opsware basieren. Diese Einsichten sind extrem wertvoll, insbesondere für Unternehmer, die sich in schwierigen Situationen befinden und nach einem Weg suchen, durch diese hindurchzukommen.Realer Einblick in das Unternehmertum: Horowitz bietet einen realistischen Einblick in die Herausforderungen des Aufbaus und der Führung eines Unternehmens. Es geht nicht nur um Erfolgsgeschichten, sondern auch um die harten Entscheidungen, die man treffen muss, wenn es keine klaren Antworten gibt.Inspirierend und motivierend: Trotz der harten Themen, die im Buch behandelt werden, ist es auch unglaublich inspirierend. Es zeigt, dass man auch in den schwierigsten Zeiten durchhalten kann und dass es immer einen Weg nach vorne gibt, selbst wenn die Dinge ausweglos erscheinen.Unterhaltsam geschrieben: Horowitz’ Schreibstil ist direkt, unterhaltsam und oft humorvoll. Er verwebt seine Lehren mit interessanten Anekdoten und Referenzen aus der Popkultur, was das Buch sowohl informativ als auch angenehm zu lesen macht.Fazit:”The Hard Thing About Hard Things” ist eine unverzichtbare Lektüre für Unternehmer, Führungskräfte und alle, die sich mit den realen Herausforderungen des Geschäftsbetriebs auseinandersetzen müssen. Ben Horowitz bietet nicht nur theoretische Ratschläge, sondern auch handfeste, praxisnahe Lösungen für die schwierigsten Situationen, die man als Unternehmer erleben kann. Dieses Buch ist ein ehrlicher, realistischer und extrem hilfreicher Leitfaden für das Unternehmertum – ein Muss für jeden, der eine Firma aufbauen und führen will.

Livro rápido e excelente das reflexões de ex CEO de empresa de técnologia e um dos venture capitalist de mais relevância atualmente, liçoes excelentes da pratica de um CEO que começou como start-up, passou por scale-up, abriu capital e realizou a venda da empresa.